Shopping (Nakupování)

It is not easy to do shopping in Prague, because there are many people everywhere. Everything is very expensive and it is difficult to choose a good thing in a good quality. Moreover the shop assistants are not polite but lazy to advise (radit) you. It is usually better to do shopping in small shops, because there they have better choice and lower prices. Special things like electronics is better to buy in a special shop.

You can buy in expensive shops especially brand goods (značkové), these shops are good, because usually they have your size and the shop assistant must be polite. But there is a problem with the price. These things are usually very expensive. If you are not rich, you cannot buy in shops like Giga sport, United colour of Beneton, Nike, Adidas, or Russell athletic. If you don’t like these shops with brand goods, you can go to a department store like Kotva, or to the second hand shops, there you can buy everything very cheap. But in department stores he goods usually do not fit (nepadne). Second hand shops are very advantageous for young people, especially for students. If you have a lucky day, you can buy there good things in good quality which will fit (padnout) you.

Some people don’t have problems with buying closes, because they have a lot of money or time to choose them, but shopping is not only shopping clothes. There are other shops like grocer’s, baker’s, greengrocer’s, stationary, butcher’s, drug store, bookstore, chemistry, and another shops like small street shops full of trash and rubbish. (brak)

I like small shops with ceramics, India shops with scented (vonící) sticks, they are usually family shop, and the shop assistant tries to sell you something. When they have time, they talk to you about weather, politics, family, or an old recipe (recept) how to cook a fish.

Nowadays there is problem with books. After the leaving exam many people want go to the universities school, and there they need a lot of books. Books are very expensive, so they must look for these titles in second hand bookshops (antikvariát) or ask some other students to copy their books. If you are lucky, you find someone who doesn’t need the book you are looking for and he is content (ochoten) to sell it to you. Another problem with books is with entertaining (zábavný) literature. We don’t really need it but we want it. There is alternative to buy books in antiques or lend books in a library. But some people who collect books must save (šetřit) if they want to buy some book.

When you buy some food, you must be careful. Big markets want sell everything. So it is better to do shopping in small private shops, because it’s owners want to have a good reputation. If you buy food everywhere, be careful and wash all fruit and vegetable before you eat it.

Shopping in foreign cities is for us very interesting. After the breakdown of Soviet block, people from eastern Europe loved to travel abroad and do shopping there. It is was like a fever. In these days it is better but people still like buying things which are atypical for their country and typical for the country they visited.